lines." (Line 7) The final portion of the sonnet tells how the beloved differs from the summer in various respects. Her beauty will be one that lasts forever, "Thy eternal summer shall not fade." (Line 9), and never end or die. In the couplet at the bottom, the speaker explains how that the beloved's beauty will accomplish this everlasting life unlike a summer. And it is because her beauty is kept alive in this poem, which will last forever. It will live "as long as men can breathe or eyes can see." (Line 13)On the surface, the poem is on the surface simply a statement of praise about the beauty of the beloved woman and perhaps summer to the speaker is sometimes too unpleasant with the extremes of windiness and heat that go along with it. However, the beloved in the poem is always mild and temperate by her nature and nothing at all like the summer. It is incidentally brought to life as being described as the "eye of heaven" with its "gold complexion". The imagery throughout the sonnet is simple and attainable to the reader, which is a key factor in understanding the poem. Then the speaker begins to describe the summer again with the "darling buds of May" giving way to the " summer’s lease", springtime moving into the warmth of the summer. The speaker then starts to promise to talk about this beloved, that is so great and awing that she is to live forever in this sonnet. The beloved is so great that the speaker will even go as far as to say that, "So long as men breathe, or eyes can see," the woman will live. The language is almost too simple when comparing it to the rest of Shakespeare’s sonnets; it is not heavy with alliteration or verse, and nearly every line is its own self-contained clause, almost every line ends with some punctuation that effects a pause. But it is this that makes Sonnet18 stand out for the rest in the book. It is much more attainable to understand and it allows for the reader to fully understand how gr...
